And As I Wake
by SeungSeiRan
Summary: She clings to him the way the wind would with a wave: without a sound but the roar no one else hears. Tidus x Yuna.


An attempt at Tidus/Yuna smut which turned into... well, I hope it's a lot more substantial :/

Disclaimer: FFX and its respective characters are property of Square Enix.

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"What's it like when you drown?"

Wet. It wasn't the familiar saltiness she had grown up with, being warmer, stickier… intimate. The fiery streaks of pain had been forgotten, worn down by strokes of skin over skin, the spreading glow unravelling into spools of warmth. Tingling. It had been her first time.

She was only dimly aware of the cover of purple cloth over their bare limbs. The morning was a dark, dark place with her eyes closed; it was a better place. With her eyes closed, she relearned this moment, touch upon touch, tear after tear. With her eyes closed, she relearned the echoes of laughter adrift in the aftermath, away with the sighs and whispers. There was the heat of his breath on her shoulder (_she remembered_), there was the circle of his arms around her, nuzzling her waist, caress falling short of another last kiss (_she remembered, every one_). She closed her eyes and watched the world arise, shadow and shadow, illusion after illusion.

The tears burned as she let them fall, eyes closed. The dark was tender, the dark was kind.

"Once you get past the dying part, it's actually kinda… beautiful," he answered. "If you don't close your eyes."

Cold. Mornings in Besaid were always cool air and hot sun. Cold feet, warm hands. And now, trapped heat and heartbeats. Home had never felt so far for her or near to him. The memory of 'then' was decaying even as it was rebuilt. It was water in her hands, sand between her toes.

It would be carried away. Soon.

The thought clawed at her. Her hands strayed to the coverlet, cool cotton and palms sweating once they were released from the clasp of another. She opened her eyes, tasting the salt on her lips. Beneath the tang of sweat in his scent, she could smell the sea, the sand at the bottom rough on his chest. She kept her eyes closed as the first wave of sleep washed over them. The warmth remained, ebbs of comfort as slippery as the fish that used to nibble at her feet in the streams she had played in as a child. They had been silver, they were little silver fish that dazzled and deluded in the light.

He was gone now. All she could feel were the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, asleep. Gone.

This time, she dared lift her eyes open.

Her tears had since flowed away, unseen. The Springs watched over them with all the tenacity of a blue fire, while allowing only one the peace of rest. His touch is but fleeting phantom, its treasured heat fading into shadows. Even the moisture on their skin was fast disappearing. Her breath does not calm out as shaky as expected, but it had already lost his rhythm after their ocean dance. It already felt like years since then, a first time which might have been their only.

When she looked at the plants that grew near the water, at the trees twisted into the most fascinating – frightening when she let her gaze slide out of focus – shapes, she noticed the gnarled roots spread across the mud. They looked like they were recoiling, not reaching. Their lot was not made for beauty. Instead, they sank further into the quagmire. She craned her neck to look up, away from them.

What did it feel like to drown? What would it be like to look up to the surface then? What if she had had nothing left to lose, to begin with?

What if this had been easier, somehow?

Even if she wanted to close her eyes and join him in sleep, she couldn't. She began to blame it on the night, the bleached-blue moon which turned ashen wood to ivory bone, soft skin to calluses and new-born scars. It had been too late to turn back long ago.

Because if it wasn't that, there was only her heart to be held at fault. Trapped in a cage of its own, it fought to breathe, every beat a little shout. A scream. The sun would rise above soon and turn his hair gold from grey. The light would always have to win. Surely.

"Yuna," His voice somehow carried its way over to her. Hot breath in her ear, a kiss on the back of her neck. "Oh, Yuna…"

The ring of warmth around her in his arms loosened slightly, his eyes lit by newfound concern. "Are you…"

"I'm okay," she found herself saying. "I'm okay."

Out of the blue dawn, a chill makes itself known.

"… Let's stay just here."

He only nods in response. The quiet scares her. They wrap the sheet around them tighter, skin, bones, and shivers. There isn't much time left until… if what he says is true. But it is, it _is_ true.

Says the rustle of the reeds, the nod of the trees, says the flutter in her chest.

She clings to him the way the wind would with a wave: without a sound but the roar no one else hears. Something breaks. Or has been. Something within her has always been broken, waiting to be fixed. Perhaps she has just been a broken piece all this time, porcelain white and long dried of tears. She looks away and sees the hole shaped by her father, and the cracks which have started to appear. Each jagged line stands for another shard to lose: Rikku, Lulu, Wakka, Kimahri.

"Tidus?"

"Yeah?"

"What's it like when you drown?"

It takes him a moment to answer. "You won't ever have to learn. I promise."

She supposes that will have to do for now.

They stay wrapped in each other until the day finally turns its head on them with neither a smile nor a frown, until a call from well-meaning, encroaching friends has them scrambling for their clothes. The remains of sleep fall from their eyes, dust in the breeze.

The time had come.


End file.
